Self-Guided Tour in the Museum of Roses

Museum of Roses of its kind is located in the Town of Roses – Kazanlak. The first museum exhibition of the Kazanlak rose was displayed in 1967 and from 1969 onwards it turned into a rose museum that is globally unique. The museum’s look, as we know it nowadays, dates back to 1984. It is located in a new building in Rosarium park and is part of the Iskra historical museum in the town of Kazanlak. The Museum of Roses has a rich collection of objects, pictures and documents that reveal the history of Bulgarian oleaginous-roses growing. These exhibits are located in three halls. Inside the museum one can see instruments used for processing rose gardens, utensils for storage and export of rose oil and rose water. There is also a reproduction of a rose-oil depot and of the first rose-oil examination laboratory established in 1907. Hristo Yaramov is a chemistry teacher in the Kazanlak school. The laboratory was aimed at analyzing the rose oil and started issuing certificates for the purity of oil that was to be exported abroad. The period back then was hard for Bulgarian rose-growing as the so called ‘tereshe’, or fake rose oil, emerged. Threatened by deterioration of the Bulgarian rose oil’s reputation as the world’s best, Hristo Yaramov’s laboratory was a successful attempt to spoil this wrongful practice. A remarkable object in the museum’s exhibition is a rose-oil container that was last used in 1947, but the rose fragrance still comes out of it.